Business Management Assignment: Organizational Strategies Of The Body Shop
Question
Task:
Write a well-researched business management assignment illustrating the human resources, marketing and financial strategies of The Body Shop.
Answer
Introduction
This report on business management assignment presents various strategies of The Body Shop. The Body Shop is a British based Cosmetics company founded in 1976 by Dame Anita Roddick. The first body shop retail store was opened in Brighton, England. The company has a wide range of approximately 1000 products selling in 3000 stores across 65 countries. This report focuses on the Human Resource strategy of the organisation while discussing recruitment strategy and training and development reward. The marketing strategy of the Body Shop will also be discussed. This report will present the financial strategy of the Body Shop by analyzing their Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss Account. This report will also give a brief about the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the company. After analyzing all these factors, the end of the report will evaluate the Best strategy which results in the success of The Body Shop (Thebodyshop.com. 2021).
Human Resource Strategies
The human Resource (HR) strategy of an organisation consists of planning for managing all the available human capital to perform various business activities. Human Resource strategy includes strategy towards Hiring, performance evaluation, appraisal, development and compensation of the employees working in the organisation. One of the most important aspects of HR strategies of any organisation is their recruitment strategy. The recruitment strategy includes the process of recruiting employees in an organisation. The Body Shop has a very unique recruitment strategy. The company’s recruitment process works on Open Hiring Policy (Cooper 2021). The Open Hiring Policy simply means to hire the first person who applied for the job and without any background check. The recruitment process of the company is based on three simple parameters. The first parameter is the eligibility of the person to work in the United States. The second parameter checks if the person is capable to stand for eight hours and the last parameter is to know If the person can lift more than 50 pounds of weight. The company claims that they will hire anyone who covers all these parameters. As per the Open Hiring Policy, there won’t be any drugs and background check for the person applying for the job. The recruitment process of the Body Shop is based on a first-come and first, serve basis. It brings hope for the unemployed and sometimes for people with a criminal background. This policy gives them a chance to turn their lives and might help them to build a future for themselves and their families (Fauziah & Mulyana 2018).
Training and development reward is the process for the employees to make them aware of their duties and responsibilities. The Body Shop focuses on various factors to provide training to its employees. They want their employees to be efficient enough to take real-life challenges. The training program works on developing active listening and questioning skills and developing self-awareness. At the starting and the end of the training and development program participants were asked to rate themselves against all these factors. It helps to track the progress of an individual. The program also works on various personal objectives or goals of the individual which they want to achieve for themselves. At the end of the training process, participants give their personal experience on how the program benefitted them as individuals. The training and development program not only helps the employees to know about their Organizational responsibilities but also to know and develop their personality as an individual (Korovkin 2020).
Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy is a process that helps an organisation to increase their reach to consumers and turn them into their customers by providing them goods or services. A good marketing strategy helps business to achieve their desired goals and targets. The marketing strategy of The Body shop focuses on three various aspects. These three aspects are segmentation, targeting and positioning. Segmentation refers to the demographics, initially, The Body Shop used to deal only in women products. Their main consumer base was skincare and cosmetic products for women (Chairunnisa, Fahmi & Jahroh 2019). Recently to increase their market they have developed special products for men as well. The segmentation is done to identify the consumer base in more detail. The market is segmented on the basis of the age and occupation of the consumers. The Body Shop has majorly targeted its market for the woman. The skincare products are available for women who work, housewives and teens. The Body Shop is positioned to provide products that are natural and organic. As a brand, The Body Shop is always concern about the environment. They have also done campaigns against products being tested on animals. The marketing strategy of the company is based on promoting more natural and environment friendly products (Kearins & Klyn 2017)
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of an organisation refers to their strategies incorporated over social and environmental concerns. CSR is a strategy that is beneficial for the company and also for society. The Corporate Social responsibilities of The Body Shop is based on three different aspects which are People, Product and the Planet. There were 14 targets introduced by the company related to these three aspects. The Body Shop will increase their community trade program from 19 to 40 which helps the communities which are producing them. The company will help 40,000 economically weak people and also engage 8 million people in Enrich not Exploit mission (Purkayastha & Fernando 2017). The company also promises to invest 250,000 hours of skills to enrich local communities. In the aspect of the product, the company ensures the use of 100% natural ingredients by protecting 10,000 hectares of forests and natural habitat. The company publishes the use of ingredients from natural origin and green chemistry. The company also promises to reduce the environmental footprints of all products. In the aspects of protecting the planet, The Body Shop focuses on building bio-bridges and protecting 75 million sq meter of habitat. The company ensures 70% of product packaging does not contain fossil fuels and also promises to reduce 10% of the energy from every store across the world (Voigt, Buliga & Michl 2017).
Financial Strategy
Financial strategy is an important process of an organisation that focuses on reducing capital cost, acquiring capital and making difficult monetary decisions and creating investment plans. The financial strategy of The Body Shop will be discussed on four different variables. The process of Sales Estimation helped The Body Shop in a significant way. As a business organisation The Body Shop always gave importance to the calculation which represents the current sales volume then they used to compare them with the previous sales and lastly converting the results into a percentage. In case of decrement in sales, the company takes the appropriate measures to improve the sales volume. The process of financial forecasting helped The Body Shop to achieve its current position. This is the process of estimating the future performance of the business in the financial aspect. This process focuses on estimating the financial condition or upcoming changes which helps the business to evaluate the present finances and make the required changes accordingly. The Balance sheet of The Body Shop from the year 2018 reflects that the total assets of the company were valued at 531m and the total liabilities of the company were valued at 180m. The Income statement of The Body Shop for the financial year 2018 shows that the company had total revenue of 806m which was 797m in the year 2017. The cost of the sold goods was 194m in 2018 which results in a gross profit of 612m. Both the Balance Sheet and the Income statement of The Body Shop clarifies that the company is gradually increasing their profits every year (Craft.co. 2021).
Conclusion
The Body Shop is a global brand that deals in skincare and cosmetics products. It has around 3000 stores including franchised outlets across 65 countries around the world. After discussing Human Resources Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Financial Strategy and Company Social responsibility it is clear that all these strategies are playing a vital role in the success and growth of The Body Shop. Each strategy has its importance in the process of executing a business. The Human Resource strategy and the Marketing strategy contributes most significantly to the success of the organisation. The Open Hiring Recruitment policy helped the organisation to maintain their reputation among the employees which results in increasing morale of the employees. Although the Open hiring policy is criticized by some people but it helps many unemployed people to bring a change in their life. The marketing strategy of The Body Shop plays a very important role in their success. The evaluation of current market trends and consumer base helps the organisation to understand the needs and requirement of the consumer which increases the number of satisfied customers. The Body Shop always focuses on providing products made from natural ingredients which do not harm the environment in any way. The company also promotes their Corporate Social Responsibility which helped them to build their brand image as a Green Company. Hence, it is clear that proper implication of business strategies is one of the important reason for the growth and success of The Body Shop.
References
Chairunnisa, S.S., Fahmi, I. and Jahroh, S., 2019. How Important Is Green Marketing Mix For Consumer? Lesson From The Body Shop. Jurnal Manajemen, 23(2), pp.321-337.
Cooper, K., 2021. The Body Shop Just Smashed Recruitment Wisdom Apart. [online] Forbes. Available at:
Craft.co. 2021. [online] Available at:
Fauziah, P. and Mulyana, M., 2018, November. Formulation of The Green Marketing Development Strategy for the Body Shop Botani Square Bogor. In International Conference On Accounting And Management Science 2018 (pp. 171-181).
Kearins, K. and Klyn, B., 2017. The body shop international plc: The marketing of principles along with products. In Greener Marketing (pp. 285-299). Routledge.
Korovkin, V., 2020. The Body Shop Case Analysis. The Challenges of Managing Business As Holistic Configuration. The Challenges of Managing Business As Holistic Configuration (April 14, 2020).
Purkayastha, D. and Fernando, R., 2017. The Body Shop: Social Responsibility or Sustained Greenwashing? 1. In Case studies in sustainability management and strategy (pp. 226-251). Routledge.
Thebodyshop.com. 2021. Our Brand Purpose | Our Manifesto | The Body Shop®. [online] Available at:
Voigt, K.I., Buliga, O. and Michl, K., 2017. Pure Beauty: The Case of The Body Shop. In Business Model Pioneers (pp. 25-39). Springer, Cham.
